Great Satan US Continues Arms Sales to Zionist Puppet Bahrain amid Bloody Crackdown

Great Satan US continues to provide weapons and maintenance to Zionist Puppet Bahrain despite bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in the small Persian Gulf nation, a report said.

The US Defense Department documents released to ProPublica give the fullest picture yet of the arms sales. The list includes ammunition, combat vehicle parts, communications equipment, Blackhawk helicopters, and an unidentified missile system, Stars and Stripes reported.

The documents, which were provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and cover a yearlong period ending in February 2012, still leave many questions unanswered. It’s not clear whether in each case the arms listed have been delivered. And some entries that only cite the names of weapons may in fact refer to maintenance or spare parts.

The US Defense Department spokesman Paul Ebner declined to offer any more detail. “We won’t get into specifics in any of these because of the security of Bahrain,” said Ebner.

While the US has maintained it is selling Bahrain arms only for external defense, human rights advocates say the documents raise questions about items that could be used against civilian protesters.

“The US government should not be providing additional military equipment that could make matters worse,” said Sunjeev Bery, Middle-East advocacy director for Amnesty International USA.

There have been reports that Bahrain used American-made helicopters to fire on protesters in the most intense period of the crackdown. Time magazine reported in mid-March 2011 that Cobra helicopters had conducted “live ammunition air strikes” on protesters.

The Obama administration has stood by Bahrain’s ruling family, who are Sunni, during nearly two years of protests by the country’s majority Shiite population. Bahrain is a longtime ally and the home to a large American naval base.

The itemized arms sales list does not include dollar values but a separate document says military equipment worth $51 million was delivered to Bahrain in the year starting in October 2010.

The US has long sold weapons to Bahrain, totaling $1.4 billion since 2000, according to the State Department. The sales didn’t come under scrutiny until security forces killed at least 19 people in the early months of the crackdown in 2011. (Dozens have died since then.)

Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since February 2011, calling for an end to the Al-Khalifa family rule which has continued in the country since 1974.

Eighty people have been killed and thousands arrested since the unrest began. Many opposition figures have been arrested on the allegation of planning to topple the government.

According to a 2011 report by Human Rights Watch, the government regularly abuses its citizens. The abuses include denying defendants the right to counsel and to present a defense, denial of medical access to protesters injured by security forces, torture and ill-treatment during interrogation.